


John H. Watson and the Pissed off Camel Mama

by a_xmasmurder



Series: Stories from the War Front [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Strike Back
Genre: AU!John - Freeform, Funny story that wasn't so funny after all, Gen, John Watson gets his arse kicked by a Camel, That's not how it works, You can't eat Toes, there is a moral in this story, zombie apocalypse AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 18:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_xmasmurder/pseuds/a_xmasmurder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John tells a story that makes everyone laugh at him, especially Porter. There's a moral to the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John H. Watson and the Pissed off Camel Mama

**Author's Note:**

> I have never given birth to a camel. *shrugs* That should be the only warning you people need, okay? It's wank, just deal with it :D

Greg took the wheel this time, if only to avoid another John-sized accident. Porter and John sat in the far back with Gladstone and Molly to watch the rear approach for zombies. Sherlock, Sally, Martha and Sarah filled the middle seat, and Anderson sat in the front seat with the shotgun. The ride was cramped and hot, but since the morning hadn’t brought any creatures within a thousand yards of the vehicle, the windows were wide open to let in the summer breeze. Toby yowled with discontent and roamed through the whole cabin area, restrained only by his will to not be ran over or eaten. Sherlock hummed along to whatever was playing on his iPod.

“How does he even charge that thing?” Porter debated poking the strange man in the temple with his finger. John chuckled.

“I’m not even sure. I wouldn’t disturb him, if I were you.”

Molly smiled and patted the puppy in her lap on the head. “I wish I’d brought mine. I could use some pick me up music right now.”

Sally leaned her head towards Sherlock. “I think he’s got Florence + The Machine on.”

“Are you serious?” Greg tapped the steering wheel with his thumbs as he bopped along to an imaginary beat. “He’d listen to that?”

“Hey, they aren’t that bad!” Sarah thumbed rounds into one of her empty magazines. “I listen to them once in a while.”

John shook his head at the commotion. From the front, Anderson let out a whoop. “Hey, this thing has a CD deck!”

“How? Did they even have CD’s in the nineties?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” Sherlock pulled one of his ear buds out. “Of course they did. I just didn’t think it came standard on vehicles until around 2000.” He waved his hand. “Ish.” He handed the earbud to Sally. “Here, listen on this so you don’t have to put your poodle head so close to mine.”

Sally snorted. “Oh, God, you are so posh, aren’t you?” She shook her head in his direction.

“Don’t. If your hair comes near me, my hair wants to frizz out in sympathy. Don’t.”

“Okay, kids, we don’t need a repeat of the hair straightener incident in here.” John’s smile turned into laughter when he caught sight of Porter’s flabbergasted expression.

“The...hair straightener incident?”

“Sherlock here chased Sally around the kitchen table with a hair straightener a couple days before you showed up, Porter. It was hilarious.” Molly pulled a tug rope out of her bag. “Here, Gladdy boy, you can have this.” The pup went a bit nuts, and Porter reached to cover his nether regions before the dog could trample them in his glee.

John laughed and turned back to the rear windscreen, his dishwater blonde hair ruffling in the wind.

“John!”

Once again, both Johns turned quickly towards Sherlock. He grunted. “I want Watson.”

Porter nodded and turned away again. John shot Sherlock a ‘be nicer’ look. “What do you want?”

“You promised you would tell me today.”

John peered at him. “Tell you...what, exactly?”

“The camel story.”

Porter’s sudden bark of glee shocked the occupants of the Rover. Greg jerked in his seat. “Good God, man, what’s gotten into you?”

John turned and bounced his forehead off the headrest of the seat. “Oh, don’t tell me you heard about it. Please, don’t tell me...”

“Did I hear about it, Watson?” Porter snorted. “The whole fucking country heard about it! I found out from Jcyzeck, while I was stateside.” He looked sidelong at John. “Did you really try to explain toes to a camel calf?”

The ex-soldier turned a beet red as the whole carload erupted into laughter. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.” He sighed. “Do I really have to tell this story, Sherlock?”

“I remember seeing something in your trunk, and I quote.” Sherlock cleared his throat. “‘ Note To self: never ever trust a man when he says he’s got a camel tied up securely, especially when the fucking thing is in labour.’ I want to hear this story. Preferably now.”

Over the racket in the truck, John made a noise that sounded like despair. “Oh, for the love of...okay, alright. Everyone in favor of hearing this story-” He took a look over his shoulder and out both side windows, “- raise your hands.”

No contest. Even Gladstone waved a paw, but only because Sherlock had taught him how to shake and he thought that’s what everyone was doing. John thumped his head on the backrest again. “Why the hell did I even bother asking. Okay. Settle in, this one’s going to be long.”

“Zombies up ahead, John. Johns. Whatever.” Anderson pointed out the open window towards a group of creatures on the side of the road. They had their backs turned to the survivors, bent over a rather large corpse of...of something.

“Please don’t see us, don’t see us, don’t notice us, don’t even look our way...” Tim breathed out.

The taller of the pack reared up suddenly as Greg slowed down a bit, and craned its neck around to hiss.

“Fuck.” Tim sighed.

“Greg, just keep driving!” Porter leaned out the side window and sighted in on the zombies as the former detective stomped on the gas pedal. The Rover jumped forward, and the first shot went wild.

“Did that freak just duck?” Porter squinted and fired again as John looked out the window next to him. Molly blushed; she now had one soldier’s leg and one whole soldier/doctor in her lap.

“I think it did.” John cursed under his breath. In a matter of seconds, they were past the pack of zombies and under way again. Sherlock took a deep breath to slow down his heart.

Sally turned in her seat after a couple of minutes. “Don’t think that zombies are going to get you out of telling that story, Watson.”

John snapped his fingers. “Drat, and here I thought my plan would work.” He chuckled and turned back to the rear. After a moment of silence, he sighed. “I really don’t think it was that funny.”

Porter snorted. “Apparently, someone from the Marines told the story so well he had the whole barracks dying of laughter.”

“That would have been Walker.”

“Ah.”

“Okay. If you want to hear my tale of pain and woe... This happened in the dead of summer in ‘07. We were running patrols in the Garmsir district, and it was a normal day. An attempted ambush, a couple half-arsed firefights, and one nice big explosion that had me swallowing dirt for two weeks after.”

A thump from beneath the Land Rover spiked the soldiers’ attention. “What was that?”

Greg waved from the driver’s seat. “Dead body. Nothing to worry about.”

“Couldn’t you swerve around it?” Sally winced.

“And hit one of two lorries on either side?”

“Oh, right.”

“Anyway!” John waved his hand. “Patrol. So. We are walking along the side of the road, and a goat herder/interpreter/troublemaker by the name of Turyalai Yusufzai comes flying up the road in his little open bed lorry. He’s got his son Emal hanging out the passenger side, yelling at us. So we have them stop, and Turyalai, he knows what’s up, so he does exactly what we tell him to do. He gets out and jabbers at Hammond for a bit while I get Emal to talk to me.” John pauses as he peers through his scope. “Yeah. So Emal’s a shy little wisp of a boy whom Harpy and I had been treating for asthma for a while by that time, so my squad was in very good graces with the Yusufzai tribe. I finally get Emal to say ‘hello’ to me when Tury hops over and starts babbling to me about a camel. He’s waving his arms around and patting me on the shoulder, saying how good of a doctor I was and how I should really come back to the village with him and help him out with his sick camel.” John huffs out a short laugh at the stock of the SA-80. “God help me, I tried explaining to him that I wasn’t a veterinarian and that I could radio for a large animal vet to come over and assist. He was having nothing to do with that. He wanted me. He said ‘ _Bridman, bridman_ , you are best _daaktar_ in all of Helmand! You will help. You are good man, number one _daaktar_!’ With that sort of winning recommendation, how could I refuse?”

Porter was smiling against his weapon and shaking his head. “I think this is going to be better than that Marine’s rendition.”

John slapped the man on the shoulder. “Hush. Now, we didn’t really have our Snatches with us, but he offered to give us a ride in the back of that rickety old truck. I wasn’t sure if the damned thing would even hold Hunter, let alone ten full grown adults. But since Tury insisted, we all climbed in as Pratt got on the radio to let HQ know we were stepping off the beaten path to help out a villager with a problem.”

Greg glanced up into the rearview mirror. “Didn’t you ask, though? Aren’t you supposed to ask to do something like that?”

“No. If we would have waited for someone to clear us to make a maneuver like that, we wouldn’t have gotten there in time. This was actually something really urgent, and I could tell. So we just let them know where we were going, and that we’d be late to our pick up, and went.” He shook his head. “Surprisingly, the poor thing survived the extra weight of us and our kit, and we made it to the village in record time. Man, we were a sight to see. Ten Paras hanging out of the back of a tiny r/c truck, riding into town in style. We get to Tury’s house, and Emal takes my hand and pulls me to the back yard, and sure enough, there’s a camel there. She’s very, very pregnant, and obviously in distress. So I run back to my guys and bring them all to the back of the house, and shout for Turyalai. I ask him if he has her tied up good. He nods and says yes, yes he does.” John hummed. “So, like an idiot, I trust him because come on. He knows her, and this isn’t his first day dealing with a pregnant camel. If he says she’s good, she’s good, right?

There’s obviously something lost in translation here. What I mean by ‘tied up good’ is that the legs are tied to stakes so that she can’t move them, and her head is secured so she can’t turn around and spit or bite me. A camel in distress is one evil son of a bitch. They’ll kick, bite, smack you with their head, trample you and stomp your arse into the dirt and shit on you if they can.” He felt a smile stretch across his face as he stared through the rifle’s scope again, then checked that image with his regular vision. So far, so good. Their trip was going smoothly. “Apparently, Turyalai’s idea of ‘tied up good’ is just looping the lead rope into the hole of the stump he normally ties her to and knotting the end of it.” He closed his eyes as the memory washed over him. “I walk up behind her to inspect the vaginal opening, see how far along she is. Well, she didn’t like that idea one bit.” He took a hand away from the rifle and rubbed his chest absently. “Before I could react, she pulls up one rear leg and fuckin’ kicks me square in the middle of my chest and sends me flying back a good seven or so feet.”

There was a chorus of sympathetic groans and gasps from everyone.

“Oh, my God.” Sally winced.

“That’s not even the good part!” Porter snorted and smiled at John. “Just wait. It gets even better.”

“Yeah, that’s what you say. It didn’t happen to you, you smarmy bastard.” John grumbled and continued, looking behind him to the others. “You know how sometimes, to start someone’s heart, a trauma doctor or medic will literally punch someone in the chest to shock the heart?”

Sarah, Sherlock, and Molly nodded. Everyone else looked a bit lost. John tilted his head back against the stock. “Well, you can do the opposite with a really strong kick.”

“Wow.” Tim supplied.

“Yeah. Damned thing nearly killed me. As it was, she cracked three of my ribs and my sternum.” He took a breath, suddenly grateful the phantom pain in his chest was just that. “Thankfully, I am still wearing my body armour, so it could have been worse. So I get up, and yell at everyone to help Tury actually tie the damned cow down. Of course, they are all laughing their arses off at me, and she’s in one hell of a tizzy now, jumping and jerking her head and making all sorts of racket. Tury and Emal get her calmed down as much as she would; and McCarter, Hunter, Pratt, Carr, and Knowles get the legs secured. This time I take my time walking up behind her, and I can see she’s dilated, but I’m seeing a tail, not a head. That’s not a good thing. You want the head and front feet coming out first, not the rear. So now the baby’s most likely stuck in the birthing canal, which means it can’t breathe, and Mum’s in a hell of a lot of pain. I had to act fast, or this calf was most likely going to get injured or even die.” He twisted around and slid down into his spot on the bench seat, leaving Porter to watch the rear.

“I really didn’t want to walk back to base covered in camel shit and blood, so I took my kit off, save for my pants, trousers, and boots. Then I had Harpy pour a bunch of hand sanitiser on my arms so I’d at least be halfway sterile for what I was about to do.” He winced. “Not like it really mattered. I move in behind Mum Camel, and just...reach in with both hands.”

“You are kidding me!” Sally wrenched her head around at Tim’s exclamation. “You stuck your arms into a camel’s rear end?”

“Yeah.” John nodded. “One in the arse, one into the birth canal. Basically, I had to figure out where this calf was stuck and either get it unstuck or push it back so I could get it turned around. Yes, disgusting, I know, but I have done much worse.” He waved off the incredulous stares, but caught Sherlock’s penetrating eyes doing their deducing thing again. He smiled. “So in the end I had to actually turn the calf around manually, which is really hard to do, by the way.”

“I’ve got zombies on your nine, Watson.”

He twisted in his seat and brought the SA80 back up and out the open window. Three quick bursts took care of the creatures running towards the SUV. “Jesus. Mycroft wasn’t kidding when he said these things were changing, and fast.”

Sherlock shivered where he sat, and murmured something about disguises. John ignored it in favor of continuing with his story. At least Porter was getting a kick out of it, judging by the tight grin on his face.

“So anyway, I’ve got my hands in this cow’s rear end, talking nonsense at her, and I’m in lots of pain because holy shit my chest is bruising in some interesting shapes and colours, and she gives this great big push and just like that I’m on my back in a slurry of blood and camel shit and piss and I’ve got a camel calf sprawled on my aching chest.”

Porter and Greg snort at the same time, and Sherlock sort of cocked his head in sympathy. The girls mutter condolences at him, and he smirked. “It does not feel good at all.”

“I bet it doesn’t!” Greg sniggered from the front seat. “Good God, what did you do?”

“Well, it’s not like I could really move. I’m in agony. Oh, am I in agony.” John huffed out a laugh. “Everybody is laughing at me, it’s not really all that funny, but even in the position I’m in, I couldn’t help but laugh at my own misfortune. But here’s where it gets interesting, because little baby camel calf is very, very confused. From my vantage point, I can tell it’s a little girl, and I sort of croak at Turyalai that it’s a girl, and he’s just hopping up and down with joy. Even Emal is smiling at me. Tury runs over to my guys to shake their hands and such, leaving me alone with a calf sitting on my chest.” He shook his head. “So I clear the airway a bit to make sure the infant is breathing, and she just blinks at me with this ‘oh my God what the hell just happened’ look on her cute little face. Then she sneezes in my face, covering me in who knows what - “

Porter was damn near in hysterics now; his sides hitched and jerked as he laughed. His eyes were squeezed shut. John let him. _‘God only knows he needs the relief right now.’_ “So she sneezes and makes this pitiful noise like ‘Someone explain to me what just happened?’ She lifts her head and looks around, still keening, and suddenly stops, as if saying ‘Oh. OH. I’m outside! I’m out, and it’s bright, and it’s hot and I don’t like it...’ and then she starts crying out in the way baby camels do, this - “ Here John screwed up his face and said, “MEEEEEHHHHHHHHHH!”

Everyone burst out laughing, including John. Porter was nearly reduced to tears at this point, and he slapped his thigh.

“So, she’s crying, and I’m trying to figure out how to extract myself from beneath her without hurting either one of us, and Mum Camel is going absolutely batshit, because she can hear her baby but she can’t reach her. I start talking to both camels at the same time, reassuring Mum that her baby is fine, and patting Baby and telling her that the world really isn’t that bad. I realise I am talking to a bloody camel, but I don’t care. Suddenly, she just stops crying, and I start worrying that she’s got a problem, but she’s staring at my face. Then she just leans forward and latches onto my fucking nose and starts sucking!”

Sherlock made a strangled noise and buried his head into the back of Anderson’s seat, his shoulders shaking with glee. Molly turned and hugged John around the chest and surrendered to her giggles.

Greg noticed a small pack of zombies, but just picked up speed to get past them. He wasn’t going to stop this now. Not when everyone’s finally having a good laugh, even if it’s at poor Watson’s expense. He shook his head and laughed along with them.

“My guys are losing their fucking minds at this point because now I’m flailing and making stupid honking noises because there’s a fucking camel trying to suck on my nose, and ow my ribs. So I try to pry her off, and she’s not. Letting. Go. I finally get her off, and she starts trying to suck on her toes. I know she’s hungry, but now I can barely get air into my lungs because I’m in pain, and I can’t yell to someone that they need to help me out, so I start muttering to her that ‘no, toes don’t work like that, you can’t eat them. You walk on toes, and you need to get up off of Uncle John so he can fuckin’ breathe, girl’.” He paused when the noise in the SUV reached a fever pitch.

Anderson squeaked, “You called yourself Uncle John!”, from the front seat, and Sherlock actually started snorting again as he tried to bury his head into the cushion in front of him. Sally and Sarah collapsed on each other, laughing so hard they were actually crying. Molly tightened her grip on him, and Porter...oh, god, Porter was reduced to silent laughter. The man leaned back on the bench seat and shook. He was mouthing ‘Oh my God, this is great, this is better than ever,’. John smiled.

“I try pushing her off, and she’s still trying to suck on her toes, and she cries at me. Mum is ready to start a nuclear war, almost... and I finally get Baby to understand that she needs to at least help me out and try to stand, and then the damned cow births the placenta. Of course, it lands on my fucking head.”

“Oh my GOD.” Sally gagged. “Oh, that’s disgusting!” She started laughing again.

“So now I’m covered in literally everything that can come out of a camel. Every-fuckin’-thing. And Baby is actually up on three legs, almost on her fourth, and I’m grunting encouraging words at her while wiping off my face and hair, and huzzah! She’s up and walking towards Mum, who’s finally calming down, now that she can see her little girl. I crawl to my feet, wheezing and groaning, and everyone’s clapping and shouting ‘Congratulations, sir, you’re a daddy!’ And all I can think of to say is ‘No, I’m Uncle John, shut the fuck up and call for a helicopter because I am not fucking walking back like this!’” He strokes the rifle in his lap and looks out into London, watching the dead city passing by the window. “In a fit of insanity, I walk up to Mum’s head and pat her as Baby, whom I decided to call Aisha, fed and told her she did a real good job and that I was proud of her, and Mum grunted at me and rested her jaw on the top of my head.” He blinked and sighed.

The laughter died down as everyone saw the wistful expression on John’s face. He didn’t notice.

“That mum camel was really strong, and she made it through one hell of a rough birth in one piece and still alive. I really was proud of her. When all is said and done, I’m actually really glad I followed Turyalai back to that village, and I’m glad I was able to witness such an amazing thing as that. Gave me some hope in that hellzone, it did. That district had the worst concentration of insurgents in Helmand for a while, and its people had been through so much. That pair, mother and child, they signified Garmsir’s will to carry on and survive- Hell, Afghanistan herself! Once I got out of Medical and got to my own bunk again that night, I knelt down for the first time since I was a child and thanked every damned deity I could remember that miracles still existed in this world.”

He looked around at everyone. The vehicle was silent. Porter kept his head turned away, but he was nodding very subtly.

“We’ll make it through this, guys. If Mum Camel and Aisha can make it, so can we.”

 


End file.
